The Punjab University (PU), Lahore, has been a stronghold of the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) for over 30 years now. The IJT is the student-wing of the fundamentalist Jamat-i-Islami (JI). It is interesting to note that whereas (by the early 1990s) a majority of state-owned colleges and universities were able to shrug off the electoral as well as the ‘extra-electoral’ hegemony of the IJT, its ubiquitous domination at PU has continued unchallenged.

But why does such a scenario need to be challenged? The answer lies not only in the way IJT willfully retarded the evolution of student politics at the PU (by introducing guns and thuggery in the early 1980s), but also in the way it has been using threats, intimidation and violence to curb some entirely natural and positive cultural initiatives on campus in the name of faith, morality and patriotism. A rather long list of IJT’s deeds can be drawn but space constraints allow me to present only a most recent example of IJT’s continuing shenanigans at the PU.

In the wake of the bigoted ban on the products of an ‘Ahmadi-owned’ company by a far-right faction of the Lahore Bar Council, the IJT, quite like its mother party, after suffering from the affects of a long decaying bout of intellectual bankruptcy, decided to adopt the ‘ban’ for the PU. Yes, faithful IJT jocks at the PU have disallowed the sale of the company’s juices and other food products at university canteens. And not surprisingly, so far it has not met with any opposition.

But were the students of the PU always so submissive in the face of IJT’s myopic onslaughts? Largely yes, and they still are, especially ever since 1984 when the Ziaul Haq dictatorship banned student unions. Across the 1960s and till about the early 1970s, campus politics and unions in Pakistan were hotbeds of left-wing student groups, an achievement largely attained through student union elections.

Interestingly, from 1974 onwards, it was the same electoral process that also turned the IJT into a force, especially in Karachi and Punjab.

Cashing in on the ideological bickering and splits witnessed within the left-wing student outfits at the time, IJT coupled this opportunity by doing some excellent administrative work associated with student governments, and consequently began to win union elections on a regular basis.

However, it soon lost the plot when after Ziaul Haq’s military coup in 1977 it became a willing tool of the reactionary dictatorship, helping it (through violence) to wipe out anti-Zia and progressive student groups from campuses. It finally paid the price when during the last widespread student union elections in the country in 1983, IJT faced devastating defeats at the hands of progressive student alliances. Not surprisingly, the very next year, the Zia regime banned the student unions. That was also the year when IJT faced its toughest (and last) major challenge at the PU.

It had been sweeping student union elections at the PU since 1971 and ever since the Zia coup it had also become an organisation to fear. The fear factor also worked in discouraging anti-IJT students to stand in an election against particular IJT heavyweights, especially Hafiz Salman Butt, who was always expected to win uncontested.

Butt who today is a prominent member of the JI, was IJT’s main man at the PU and was winning student union elections without even bothering to campaign. He was also known to be a trigger-happy hothead. Encouraged by the large gains made by leftist student groups in the 1983 student union elections across Karachi, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the progressive student alliance at the PU decided to put up candidates for all posts of the student union. The alliance was mainly made up of the radical Marxist outfit, the Black Eagles, the PPP’s student-wing, the PSF, factions of the left-wing NSF and the student unit of Asghar Khan’s Tehreek-i-Istaqlal, the Istaqlal Students Federation.

Iqbal Haider Butt’s excellent book, Revisiting Student Politics (2007) presents a vibrant telling of what happened next. There were 27 candidates for the top post of General Secretary of the union, but the moment IJT’s Hafiz Salman Butt announced his candidature for the post, all other candidates withdrew from the race.

All but one: Illyas N. Shahzad, a young man from Gujranwallah who’d come down to PU for further studies. He was an unassuming member of the PSF. Illyas was first given ‘friendly advise’ to leave the field, but when he refused, he was threatened by IJT goons and then even abandoned by some of his own friends!

In an amusing account of the threats he was facing, Illyas is quoted (in Haider’s book) as saying that even women students belonging to IJT taunted him and showed mock sadness about what Hafiz was about to do to him. Unable to openly campaign (and in hiding), much of Illyas’s campaigning was done by some women belonging to Black Eagles and a few students of the National College of Arts (NCA), who used to visit the PU during election time.

llyas who today runs a textile mill says he still gets tense and anxious about those days. He was expected to eventually back down and if not, then certainly lose heavily to the IJT heavyweight. But lo and behold, PU students might have begun to stay clear of him, they decided to vote against IJT’s strong-armed tactics and handed a convincing victory to Illyas. This was also the first time ever since 1971 that an IJT member had lost an important election at the PU.

But IJT’s electoral demise did not last long. It bounced back when student unions were disbanded by Zia and IJT re-established its muscular domination on campus. A domination that remains unchallenged for over 30 years now.